Hi Doug, can you tell us what the main focus of your research is and how you became interested in this area?

My research is complex in nature as it crosses traditional organisational and professional boundaries.  A majority of researchers focus deeply on some aspect of their area of interest. The aim of my research is to improve outcomes for children, young people and families. Hence it needs to engage with a breadth of areas across education and welfare, children and young people’s services - including schools and family and adult services. It involves understanding holistically children and young people set within the context of their lived experience in their family and community.

I first became interested in this area as a practitioner followed by becoming a manager and leader in children’s services and as a policy writer. Historically services tend to work in silos and not speak to each other or consider other aspects of a child’s life. So, services impact can be merely a glance as regards improving outcomes for those families living daily with complex and interrelated issues such as poverty, domestic abuse or disability.

What are some of the big issues impacting outcomes for children and young people in the UK that you’re tackling with your research?

Wow… a big question to answer. The greatest issue is the silo nature of performance indicators which drive public services. Their measures of success are often set within a partial understanding of children and families. While there is much talk of multi-disciplinary approaches to some issues that negatively impact on families, these are outweighed by narrow measures of success.

For example schools are measured by Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 results as though all children are identical in nature and so this denies the issues that impact upon each child – this could be positive, for an example a parent may be a teacher and therefore understands and is able to support their child through school. Whereas another parent may have had a negative experience of school and not understand the system… think about that for a moment from those children’s perspective and who may have the best start in their school life?

My research aims to create an environment or context where these differences are neutralised through gaining deep understandings of where individual children are sited in terms of the context of their lived experience. Through holistic early intervention and prevention, we can level the playing field and reduce the impact of structural inequalities. Often, we leave it until crisis point and then respond and the child experiences trauma or multiple trauma.

Can you tell us about the partnership work you’re involved in to bring together services for children and families – and why this joined-up approach matters?

I could talk about this for days! So here are a few examples.

I worked with Leeds City Council and established a protocol now known as ‘Think Family’. This was established in 2011 and has promoted working across adult and children services and across education, welfare and health sectors. This enables and eases information sharing and mutual working prior to a family entering a crisis. Therefore, has a major impact upon outcomes.

I worked with managers and practitioners to support the development of the Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDAC) through researching good practice. The FDAC works to reduce the number of children entering the care system. This is at the critical end of child protection. This research involved substance misusing parents, the FDAC team and a host of practitioners and Court Judges working with these families. The manager of this service now advises local authorities nationally on FDAC.

At present I am privileged to work with the Centre for Young Lives and Baroness Anne Longfield to help develop national policy approaches to tackle child poverty, inclusion and attendance.

Here are a couple of examples of the outcomes which are informing the UK government:

The school attendance crisis, and
Inclusion in schools involving the Centre for Young Lives and Mission 44 – an organisation run and funded by Sir Lewis Hamiliton.

By working together we can engage with children, young people and families to tackle the interrelated and complex issues that they face on a day to day basis. The days of working in silos are coming to an end.

What are some of the challenges of working with third sector and charitable organisations, and how have you navigated or addressed them?

I have been involved with the voluntary sector for many years as a trustee, a commissioner of services and also through my research. The terrible years of austerity wiped out many of these organisations. Their main issue remains funding. This is almost always temporary in nature. Hence they must be always looking forward for further financial opportunities to maintain and enhance their work.

The positives are they are always grounded and are valued by families because of their non-statutory nature. I admire those that work in this sector as they are dedicated to improving children’s and families’ lives. Fantastic local examples are the alliance of providers of young people’s services and the partnership that provides adult and young people’s substance misuse services.

How has your work contributed to influencing policy and shaping education in Leeds?

As mentioned previously the Think Family policy is perhaps the most important and challenging piece of work. Alongside this, my work has been supporting schools and the unique locality model based upon partnerships of schools. This brings services together and we are now seeing replicas of this being developed nationally through the 90 multi-professional hubs based on schools that the incoming Labour government announced last year.

Leeds City Council are reviewing their locality model based upon schools at present and I am privileged to have been invited to work with them on more comprehensive developments. The Chief Executive and Director of Children and Families in Leeds believe this is the way forward to combat the issues our families face.

What advice would you give to researchers looking to work with schools and third sector organisations to apply their research and create real impact?

Be humble and respectful.

These professionals and leaders are experts in their area. If you are going to make a difference, top down does not work. So, telling them what they need to do is the same as telling families what they need to do to move them from where they are. It does not work.

A successful researcher gets alongside professionals and children, young people, families or whoever it is. Builds trust, builds relationships, understands the pressures on leaders and professionals work under. Understands holistically where children and families are placed.

Be humble and respectful and work in honest and open partnership… no quick wins and be in it for the long term.

How does your experience in children, young people, and family services shape the way you support students – including those you supervise as PhD researchers?

At the end of the day, we are all people with hopes and fears, worries, strengths and areas where we could do better… there is no real difference between working with practitioners, children, young people, families or supporting undergraduate students or supervising postgraduate students.  It’s about building relationships based on trust, respect and honesty.